Analyzing Tasks

Once you have articulated your instructional goal, the next step in the process is to break down that goal into the steps required to complete the goal. Dick & Carey call this a "goal analysis"; however, I find it works better as the first step in the task analysis. Task analysis is a great tool to use when analyzing a complex training requirement. It is also a great tool to use with Subject Matter Experts to get them to articulate what they do so that you can design instruction around it. 

There are different ways to do a task analysis, but the general idea is to take the instructional goal and figure out what is needed in order to accomplish the goal, first by looking at what steps are involved in accomplishing the goal, and then looking at what knowledge and skills are necessary to perform the steps. The process itself is iterative. We start with a high level list of steps and then break down those steps into substeps, and continue until we reach a level that the Learner is expected to already know. This is why it is important to do a learner analysis. 

Caution

It is easy for this activity to become pedantic. You need just enough information to build training. You don't need to go into excessive detail.

Step 1: What do experts do?

We start this by asking the question: 

What do experts do to accomplish the goal successfully?

When answering this question, you general get a high level list of steps or procedures. The focus of this level is on doing not thinking. We will get to thinking in a later level. Once you have figured out what your high level tasks are, you continue asking the question with each task. You want to go only as deep as you need to.

At this point in the process, we are still focusing on the performance context, not the learning context. Later, we will look at what we want to teach. For now, we want to stay focused on what the successful person does.

In addition we want to focus on expressing our analysis using language that is observable. This focus on observable will become really important when we start talking about assessment and how we validate that learners have achieved the instructional goal.

Avoid trying to articulate what the expert is thinking, rather, focus on what the expert is doing.

Goal analysis is often shown as a linear process, goals do not necessarily need to break down into an ordered linear fashion. We use the linear model as a way to abstract the goal and break it into component parts, but it doesn’t necessarily show the order in which those parts need to take place.

Example: Crew overboard

Example: Writing observable goals

Goal: Instructional Designers need to write observable instructional goals in their home office with pencil and paper

Goal Analysis:

  1. Gather pencil and paper.
  2. Write the learners title.
  3. Write what the learners need to be able to do in the performance environment.
  4. Write a description of the performance environment.
  5. Write a list of tools available within the performance environment.

Example: Evaluating new technologies

Goal: Instructional designers need to be able to effectively evaluate new technologies using a minimal amount of time.

Goal Analysis:

  1. Set a time limit for the evaluation
  2. Write out evaluation criteria.
  3. Search for several tools that meet the criteria.
  4. Choose one tool and evaluate against criteria.
  5. Create a journal entry outlining findings.
  6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 with other tools.
  7. Stop when time ends.

Example: Making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Goal: Beginning college students need to know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with bread, peanut butter, and jam.

Goal Analysis:

  1. Take two slices of bread out of bag put them on the cutting board.
  2. Open peanut butter.
  3. Take knife spread butter on one slice of bread.
  4. Open jam.
  5. Take knife and spread on other slice of bread.
  6. Put covered sliced of bread together.

Step 2: What knowledge and skills are needed?

When doing your goal analysis, you broken your goal down into tasks. You answered the question “what does the expert do in order to achieve the goal?”

The next step in the process is to break down each of the tasks asking the questions:

Caution

Don’t get caught up in the names of the processes – that is, what some people call task analysis others call subordinate skills analysis. Some people call goal analysis, others call it all task analysis. What is important to remember is that we first ask “what does the expert do?” and then we ask “what does the learner need to know or know how to do?”

For each step in the goal analysis, what skills and knowledge are needed for the instructional designer to complete the step successfully? Generally, this is done for most tasks in the goal analysis – however, if the task is general knowledge or skill or prerequisite knowledge or skill it is skipped. If the knowledge and skills are the same as a previous step, you can reference the previous step rather than repeating it. 

Example: Crew overboard

Example: Writing observable goals

Goal: Instructional Designers need to write observable instructional goals in their home office with pencil and paper

Goal Analysis:

  1. Gather pencil and paper.
  2. Write the learners title.
  3. Write what the learners need to be able to do in the performance environment.
  4. Write a description of the performance environment.
  5. Write a list of tools available within the performance environment.

Task Analysis:

  1. Gather pencil and paper.
  2. Write the learners title.
    1. Know a title that describes the majority of learners
  3. Write what the learners need to be able to do in the performance environment.
    1. Write down what they do using measurable terminology
      1. Know where to find a list of measurable verbs.
  4. Write a description of the performance environment.
    1. Know what characteristics of the performance environment need to be noted.
  5. Write a list of tools available within the performance environment.
    1. Recognize various tools.
    2. Know the names of specific tools.

Example: Evaluating new technologies

Goal: Instructional designers need to be able to effectively evaluate new technologies using a minimal amount of time.

Goal Analysis:

  1. Set a time limit for the evaluation
  2. Write out evaluation criteria.
  3. Search for several tools that meet the criteria.
  4. Choose one tool and evaluate against criteria.
  5. Create a journal entry outlining findings.
  6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 with other tools.
  7. Stop when time ends.

Task Analysis:

  1. Set a time limit for the evaluation – skip this one as it doesn’t require any training beyond a suggestion as the length of time depends on the complexity of the tool being evaluated.
  2. Write out evaluation criteria – what does the instructional designer need to know or know how to do in order to write out the evaluation criteria? Remember, you are not actually writing the evaluation criteria, rather you are writing out how the evaluation criteria is set out.
    1. What is the goal / purpose of the evaluation?
      1. How to write a goal statement.
    2. What is the purpose of the tools being evaluated?
    3. What tools are actually being evaluated?
      1. Where do you find a list of tools to determine what to evaluate?
    4. What reviews have already been done on the tool?
      1. How do you find current tool reviews?
        1. How to filter search results by date.
    5. What tools are similar to the tool being evaluated?
      1. How do you find similar tools?
      2. How do you find tools of a different type that might also be used to do the same job?
    6. What perspective is the evaluation being done from?
      1. Who will use the evaluation?
    7. Who are the end users of the tool?
    8. What are common tasks done with the tool?
    9. How will you rate the different tools?
    10. How do you know the evaluation is complete?
  3. Search for several tools that meet the criteria.
    1. How to write a good search string.
      1. How to use the AND operator
      2. How use the OR operator
    2. How to find alternative terms to broaden search.
    3. How to know you have found the ‘right’ tools to include in your review.
    4. How many is several?
  4. Choose one tool and evaluate against criteria.
    1. How to learn a new tool quickly?
    2. Where to find good tool tutorials?
      1. How to search YouTube.
      2. How to search the tool provider website.
      3. Where to find other sources of training material.
    3. How to tell between advertised hype and actual tool use?
  5. Create a journal entry outlining findings.
    1. How to write up findings in a way that they can be used in the future
      1. How to write a paragraph identifying the criteria.
      2. How to use a table to
    2. What not to write
    3. How to keep this step from being overwhelming
  6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 with other tools – skip – this doesn’t need an analysis it is a repeat of prior steps.
  7. Stop when time ends – skip – this doesn’t need an analysis as it is common knowledge.

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